


Some Damn Artisanal-Zumba Shit

by Grand_Funk



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Agency shenanigans, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13694565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grand_Funk/pseuds/Grand_Funk
Summary: Maybe he was dreaming, maybe this was just some bullshit his brain made up and he would step through the office door and find himself in an upside-down version of the Ripley or on Pluto. But since, for the time being, he seemed to still be here, he might as well do this right. Brandishing pajamas and indignation, Todd announced his entrance.





	Some Damn Artisanal-Zumba Shit

A melody sings its way through stagnant air. It drifts and ambles and curls through dry wall and brick. Its redistribution out into the world, not completely whole, is a secret to be heard by the lucky few that catch it in passing. The fleeting serenity that removes some passerby from the monotony of routine for a quick fling.  
   
The soft touch of Nocturne Op. 9, No. 1, and beauty blooms from city streets and forest paths alike. Flying down the interstate, soft-top down, Highway to Hell whipping through the wind and you're a great American movie hero. Boulevard of Broken Dreams to Caccini's Ave Maria. Catch a piece, the bits that find a way through whatever walls and windows fail to contain them, and be spirited away for as long as you're together. Maybe even a bit longer...  
   
Unfortunately for Todd, what found it's way through the thin walls and drafty floorboards of the rooms above the Agency was all noise and none of the aforementioned romantic musings. A dead weighted club thump, and driving… driving… _Is that an accordion?_ decided it wanted to snuggle up into the bed right alongside him. _It was too early for this_. Any time would be too early for this, but at, and Todd's eyes begrudgingly slid to the bedside clock, 5:07AM… Jesus.  
   
   
Todd laid in bed and festered. He had improved himself, he'd worked, and while still very much flawed, his personal renovation was well underway. Making up for a couple decades of selfishness, intolerance, and a litany of leech-like qualities had been difficult. But nothing had been quite so hard as owning that his actions were not one with his character. If he wasn't a horrible person, then he'd just been choosing to do horrible things and that was monstrous to contend with. But he had, and everything after that seemed to be easier. He'd stopped defaulting to intentionally harsh words and taking the low road. He’d changed his world view from a burnt coffee and vinegar to more of a dark chocolate and vinaigrette; Bitter, but palatable.  
   
But there was a limit.  
   
For as well as he'd been doing, Todd definitely would not be backtracking if he were a little harsh and took the low road again, just this one time. And that's what Todd told himself as he descended the steps leading to the offices of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency to ream out his best, and worst, friend with every tool in his Practiced-Asshole Arsenal.  
   
   
Each step brought the fuel of the offending noise and fire of Todd's chronic ire closer to their inevitable blaze. With each step he could feel bass through his socks and definitively hear that, _yeah_ , that _had_ been an accordion. It was an accordion and it was playing something that sounded surreally close to Bad Romance. Maybe he was dreaming, maybe this was just some bullshit his brain made up and he would step through the office door and find himself in an upside-down version of the Ripley or on Pluto. But since, for the time being, he seemed to still be here, he might as well do this right. Brandishing pajamas and indignation, Todd announced his entrance.  
   
—*—  
   
The internet was truly an incredible creature; A multiplicity, synergetic, a source of human-sustaining energy. Add pizza and Dirk was sure that any being could use it to continue functioning ad infinitum. And being the good and technically _professional_ , detective that he was, Dirk was going to have to test this idea. Again. Eventually it would just have to cave and work.  
   
A half pie and seven hours into the annals of YouTube later and Dirk was beginning to question his hypothesis. Again.  
   
And then, a coincidence.  
   
Because of all the ways The Universe was cruel, there was nothing quite so acetic as when it showed him kindness.  The Universe, on occasion, would be gracious: When it needed to be, when it needed his hand. It was his very own manipulative lover who would hack and sunder with no thought spared for blood loss or dislocated joints, and only upon finding him cold to it, would it woo him back with indulgences; Big gifts, small gifts, exceptionally personalized and pointed gifts. The problem was, though, that it always worked. He always went back, didn't he?  
   
And that night, just as Dirk was about to abandon his little flight of fancy, The Universe decided to present him with something nice. In a moment of poor judgment and poorer balance, Dirk had wobbled over in his office chair and just happened to miss changing the video before autoplay rolled on to something else. And so he found the office computer playing a song with cheering, a song with cheering and a lot of bass, and then, _oh… hmm. That's very good…_  
  
_Well played._ Dirk thought as loudly as he could, looking out into the darkness filling the space around him.  
   
What had just, by chance, found its way onto Dirk's office computer was exquisite. Quite possibly the second greatest musical chef d'oeuvre in existence. The first, of course, being everything he had been able to hunt down by The Mexican Funeral which was, unsurprisingly, all perfect. And since all of it was by the same band, it kind of all counted as a singularity. It just was one that had a multi-dimensional existence and so it could totally all simultaneously occupy the spot of number one.  
   
Dirk thought about it and wiggled his toes. And if a soft smile found its way onto his face, well, he supposed he could give it a moment to stay since it had only just arrived. These moments of thought on his small discovery was something just for him. Not only because of the staggering side-effects they had on his heart, but because The Universe, and not Todd, had given him the source material. In the long run, that could cause some problems. He knew that. But for the time being, he was neither ready to lose what he had nor gain an argument. Who knew close friendship would be so complicated…   
   
But that wasn't something to think about now. Now was reserved for the full breadth of feelings that the taffy pulled vowels of the word “louca” was able to push directly out of his soul and into his rattling hands.   
His hands, though, found that they were not at all qualified for the job of holding onto this level of emotion. They were so unqualified, in fact, that he had to pause the first play for fear of existential peril in the grasp of the void or eternal damnation at his soul’s attempt to leave his body fully.  
   
_Bloody hell. How is that even possible?_ Dirk thought as he reined in the essence of his being. And then, with a breathy laugh it dawned on him: He was going to listen to this 500 times.    
   
The thing about listening to music is that once one starts listening to something new, as long as it remains newish, one may feel an inner press to hear every bit it has to offer. Every play yielding something new, a matryoshka doll of perviously unheard harmonies and interestingly timed rhythms. Was that a kick drum or the bass? Was there always some kind of an ensemble on that line? And each new speaker it comes from yielding something different: A phone highlighting crash cymbals where over-ear headphones had urged the body to move with sub bass.  
   
And as such, Dirk found himself discovering a new world within the song through a Frankensteinian assemblage of desk speakers and every piece of the office's surround sound system, courtesy of Farah the ever forward thinking, playing all at the same time. In this moment Dirk knew no greater joy  than what his ears were allowing his heart to do…  
   
And then he found a second song.

It didn't have any vowel phrases that were quite as exciting as the first, but that was okay because it bore a chorus with a cousin-like semblance to that one Lady Gaga song. The one that always made him think of 2009—And in turn, sardines, a hand hewn walking stick, and one particularly wobbly keyboard stand… that was a good year.  
  
So Dirk now had two songs. All was good, all could pretty much, almost certainly, not be better. But, if he admit to himself, which he would because who else would be listening? It's not like anyone at the office could read thoughts. It could be better on one condition…

Feeling that he should look up, Dirk looked up. _Oh sometimes times The Universe is very good_ , he thought just in time to sort of hear but mostly see,

  
"Dirk what the fuck!"  
  
—*—  
  
Between the states of Dirk's hair, pizza shrapnel, and what could no longer be called an outfit, Todd took pause, took stock, and then thought he might need to take shelter. There sat Dirk, legs and arms akimbo, tucked up into his office chair, looking like the barely successful survivor a blitzkrieg that the rest of the office had already succumb to. He also looked overjoyed.  
  
Unfortunately for Todd, he realized with a shrinking feeling of defeat, his Asshole Arsenal™ seemed to have discontinued the feature 'friendly fire'.  
  
"Oh my god. _Todd!_ Do you hear this? Oh! Wait! You're just in time for the best part!"  
  
And as Todd simultaneously thought, _Has he been up all night?_ and _How the actual shit would someone not be able to hear this?_ Dirk held up both his hands as if to stop the movement of the earth to appreciate what was about to happen. And although the earth kept moving, Todd didn't. Dirk waved about the room gesturing at…? Oh, all of the speakers. Because, and Todd hadn't really looked hard enough before, they were _everywhere_.  
  
And in that moment of thought, Todd missed the best part. Though to his defense, he had no idea what the best part was supposed to have been. It must have happened, though, because he had watched as Dirk attempted what Todd assumed was some sort of body roll.  
  
The motion in question had started with his head, travelled to his shoulders, and then to the entirety of the office chair, much to the displeasure of Dirk's already precarious balance. But the falter passed to find a re-stabilized Dirk, arms outstretched, grinning open mouthed at his former-professional-musician-friend like Apollo, brandishing lyre and wisdom, had deigned to grace the agency.  
  
And again, Todd took pause. How was he supposed to begrudge that look? And so he conceded, slumping, _it wasn't even six yet_ , and pulled over a chair before Dirk could realize how mad he had been.  
  
"Roll your ass back over here," had barely left Todd's mouth before Dirk was scooting to the desk. "If you're going to wake the block up with some damn artisanal-zumba shit, the least you can do is tell me about it."  
  
—*—   
  
Morning found Farah deadlifting an impressive amount of breakfast items as she came into work. Morning also found Farah finding her boys pressed together like school children behind Dirk's computer listening to some incredible cacophony. Fearing what unintended hell she might unleash upon herself if she decided to enter, Farah figured the most advantageous course of action would be claiming her share of breakfast and letting them remember that it was 'Farah brings breakfast to the office day'.

—*—   
   
Five AM had been left to the past and six-thirty rolled in with Todd laughing hard enough to wonder if this was the way the agency finally got him killed. Hell, if it was his time to go, this certainly wouldn't be the worst way for it to happen. Some how, of all the ridiculous and remarkable things Dirk had done, managing to find not one but two truly solid pieces of pop music that only existed in live versions and in Portuguese, had to be one of the most, well, Dirk. Of course this is what his down time coincidences looked like.  
   
"Okay wait, so how did you get from that to here?" Because Todd had discovered that a distinct type of enjoyment accompanied asking Dirk to try to explain mundane holistics.  
   
"I told you, it was just one of those things..." and Dirk took the small bullet of moving the hand that was holding up his head because non-verbal flourishes were important. Then he waved his hands in front of his face to denote the puff of magic that had brought him and this song together. "That just happen." He looked at Todd with a face full of petulance. He had explained this so much. God, was it even seven? How did Todd have this much energy?  
   
"So it just happened," and Todd also made a magic puff motion with his hands, "and you were at Portuguese accordion rave Bad Romance?"  
   
And for the way Dirk looked at him, Todd figured he must have sprouted an extra head.  
   
"…Bad Romance?"  
   
For the way Todd looked at him, Dirk figured he must have spoken a different language. Wait, had he—  
   
"You know, the Lady Gaga song. You literally just—“ But Todd didn't get to finish as Dirk regained an amount of personal battery life proportional to the scale of his revelation.  
   
"Oh! _That's_ what that song's called…?"  
   
Incredulous couldn't quite cover the look on Todd's face. His head held a tilt generally reserved for dogs and a look of 'are you fucking serious?' almost entirely reserved for the Brotzmans. He had seen Dirk recite lines of words lost to the masses, buried in the annals of English dictionaries, but he couldn't remember the title of a song that he seemed to enjoy and that had been one of the most frequently played of the past ten years.  
   
And for one of many times Todd had no idea how the person sitting before him ever managed to navigate the world.

Dirk found himself grinning despite the rest of his face's exhaustion. He was trying to uphold his cheer but sleeplessness invites thought and Dirk knew that this encounter hadn’t been just another pull of the cosmos.  Faded but not gone, Dirk's grin decided to fall into reservation, but not for any lack of joy.    
   
"I'm sorry I woke you up." Dirk said and shook his head. "I wasn't thinking about—"  
   
"Hey, nah, it's no big deal. I mean, Farah's bringing breakfast and now you owe me."  
   
The last part slid over Dirk's head at first but then seemed to tick into place. It was a longer time than what would be deemed socially acceptable in general conversation, but better late than never. Dirk leveled the little bit of interest his fogged brain was able to express at his friend. And Todd caught it. He’d been waiting for it, even.  
   
"Yeah man, you have no idea how much garbage you really start to love when you start writing music. And trust me, there's a lot of garbage."  
   
And Dirk is present again. Because Dirk was horrible at not accepting challenges of the genre ‘supportive friend displays’. Wanting to play it cooler than he felt, Dirk shrugged.

"Ehh, I'm sure I'll love it."  
   
Todd knew what he was doing when he offered reining champion Dirk Gently a game of ‘be there for your friends, you got called out on that once and will never be called out on it again if you have any say’. As far as Todd was concerned, Dirk's stubbornness would be his downfall.

"Alright, if you want to lose some money too why don't you call Amanda later and bet on that."  
   
Another thing Todd had learned was that once comfortable, Dirk liked to pick fights.

"Maybe I will."  
   
—*—

Being raised by a house of tacticians forged so much strategic prudence in Farah that, when not being used on military strategy, it found itself bleeding over to whatever it _could_ be used for. This included having the wherewithal to make a pot of coffee as soon as she was met with the outlandish fact that both Dirk and Todd were awake, let alone functioning, in the morning. Something was going to crash and burn and at least this way she could be one step closer to deescalating the inevitable. When the door finally opened she was, as always, prepared.

“You all sounded like you were having fun.” Farah said as the agency’s dynamic duo found their way into the kitchen.

Todd vouched for Farah’s canonization and made a bee line for the pot. Dirk made it as far as the doorway before slumping against the wall like his legs had completely consigned their purpose it. Todd poured and Dirk spoke.

“I woke Todd up and I swear he was just about ready to become the force behind my untimely demise.” Shrugging, Dirk looked up, looked pointedly to Todd, back to Farah, and then had the audacity to flaunt. "But he's soft and I won him over.”  
   
Todd put down the half and half and allowed the audacity what Dirk had just said to settle onto him. Todd stared as he tried to figure out weather he wanted to do that high road thing and keep rolling with forgive and forget or dump the remainder of the pot of coffee onto those shoes Dirk had just gotten.

"…You asshole. You realized?" Todd said. Flat. Waiting. Then he started again. "But you said—"  
   
"I said I hadn't been _thinking_ , I never said I didn't realize you were pissed. I mean c’mon Todd, I have eyes. I could see your face and it was like five in morning.”

Dirk looked at Todd with a frankly offensive amount of affection given the new circumstance before pursing his lips and raising his brows into, what the agency had discovered, was Dirk’s idea of a look of innocence. 

Screw the coffee, Todd was going to pour the half and half in Dirk’s shoes. See how the dick does with a case of getting old milk out of them. But, Dirk had been partially right about Todd being soft and the thought track lacked Todd's desired amount of vigor.  
   
Dirk leaned his head back against the wall, this had been wonderful but he’d been burning for hours now and was running out of wick.

“Alright, I love you people but I’ve been up since yesterday and need to do something about that.” 

Happy to see a space had opened in this game of monkey in the middle: verbal teasing addition, Farah placed herself very close to the breakfast box and donned her own, and much more convincing, mask of innocence.   
   
“Dirk, you’re leaving so soon? But you haven’t even had breakfast yet and I went to Jewel Box Café.” Farah stopped there and allowed the implication of that particular establishment hang in the air.

And now it was, finally, Dirk’s turn to look affronted. This was personal. Todd was unable to hold his laughter or his cup, but not being able to drink his coffee was a small price to pay for getting to see how the tables had turned.

“You got crêpes! You got crêpes even though I told you what I was going to be doing. You _knew_ I was going to be up all night.”   
   
Farah grinned softly and shrugged. Not an ounce of maliciousness in her frame. She _had_ known and she'd figured that there would be a very slim chance that Dirk would chose sleep over crepes. What was a few extra minutes of consciousness in the face of food-based emotional restoration?

The ball was in Dirk' s court. It was either yield and get some well needed sleep or meet the challenge and get some obscenely well made breakfast. This was not going to be a battle lost. All he had to do was change his perspective. Dirk looked at the people around him, then at the box that held what would be vastly too much food for two... Food that was never quite as perfect as leftovers. So, Dirk made a choice. He would continue his original trial for a bit longer because maybe the missing factor in his original equation had been a proportional balance of starch to sleeplessness. It was worth giving shot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for readin! If you're wondering about the songs, they're Bara Bara and Eu Sou Seu Meu Bem by Cristiano Araújo and you should definitely listen to them.


End file.
